It is remarkable that I have over 645 pages of journal notes since the beginning of the year, but no entries on the main blog page since 2 April 2009. The blog world is still a mystery to me, where people gush out their thoughts and feelings, largely unedited, first draft, and voila their thoughts are broadcast to the world. I am a far more agonizingly slow writer. Though that may come as a shock to people who see me perform and watch me virtually create an entire show on stage.
My writing is always too imperfect, I like when I’ve had a full six months to a year to view it from a myriad of angles. My best editing for poetry is to tape a new poem to the kitchen cabinet and while waiting for coffee or cooking. I look at the poem from a distance. A poem is best viewed in the same way you look at a painting – give it distance, step back, look at it from various perspectives, and compare it to other poems during that period. Is the poem fresh? Are there favorite words I always come back to? Is my structure too familiar? Does the smell of garlic influence the poem? Is the impatience of brewing coffee reflected in the poem? Do I too much “delight” in delight? Ecstatic in my sea of ecstasy? Am I surprising myself? What is the jewel in the heart of the lotus?
Writing is a quick sketch and inspiration, the sudden insight, and the slow realization. While I can dash off poems and stories, there is the inhibition that most writing, in fact, all writing, is better when it is left in a drawer for a few weeks to sit and stew. It is the mold effect. When you first write, all pieces look wonderful and creative, but if you let it sit in the drawer for a day or two the mold and the imperfections easily show. By the second or third week, it looks horrendous, a science experiment gone awry, and if you're lucky, very luck, maybe a few pieces will be golden on popping out of the creative oven.
Though I am quite, perhaps too, candid at saying pretty much what comes to mind, writing mad dash missives, the truer comment and the more accurate writing is the slower more deliberate approach. I've struggled mightily with writing for decades. Some sort of brain chemical lack of insight or the unwillingness or inability to write clear cogent sentences. subject verb agreement, right tense, etc. haunts me. Though I’ve written millions of words, far too few have been as flawless as I would like. Some writer's can turn out beautifully crafted, grammatically cogent and bold sentences that appear as flawless jewels, but almost all good writers agonize over their work. I should say, the writer's I admire, are not weighed down by the artifice of cleverness, clever for the sake of being clever (which if you read the jAz mu blog I can be accused of that), but live for the pure joy of writing clear vivid sentence and well crafted stories. I love well crafted writing whether it is Calvino, Octavio Paz, Neruda, Ishigura, TC Boyle, Voltaire, Dante, Rushdie (though I admit sometimes I think he does get excessively drunk on words-- what is that libation -- Erotomania?), Faulkner, Anais Nin, Charles Frazier... and the list goes on of all the writer's who inspire me to my core. However, I am immensely inspired by other artists and craftsmen/women -- the sculptor Michael Singer who has been able to translate his artistic vision into a viable business; my jazz buddy Chris Bakridge who is so insistently loving in his exhortation "Find your tribe!; and the world of artists who were insistent on pursuing their vision Dali, Matisse, and the thousands of obscure artists who followed that divine imperative - create!
In this short missive to you today, create, dig the infinity of your imagination. Write without fear. Create without boundaries. Sing without fear of missing a note. Dig the sublime bliss of being you.
Namaya
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